1. The raw material
2. The artistic use of Amber
3. The robbery of the Amber Room
4. Evidence against the destruction of the Amber Room

The raw material

Amber developed more than 50 million years ago from the
resin of giant needle forests, which were flooded later on by the
Baltic Sea. The resin of the Amber Pine flowed for thousands of
generations into the ground forming a layer together with other dead
plants, which has been conserved for millions of years. Storms recover
these layers and bring the Amber to shore. Ocean currents and conditions
of the ground formed large deposits of Amber,
like for example in the Samland, where Amber is not only being
collected at the beach, but also dug out of the ground. Like with
coal, large layers of sand are removed to get access to the burried
Amber.
The largest occurences are at the Baltic Sea, but also in the Dominican Republic, in
Central America, Africa, Greece and even inside some countries. The
layers below coal offer the best chances of finding Amber.

People very soon were attracted to the
coloured and lightweight stones. By mixture of different resins and
other materials, nature has developed Amber in many different
colours. There is white, yellow, red and brown Amber and more seldom
even black, green and blue Amber. There are also differences in
transparency reaching from clear to dim. Amber also exists in many
different sizes starting from very small taken by tourists as
souveniers to large Amber parts weighing several pounds.

The Amber collection of Königsberg included a stone of the
size of a head, the Polish Amber Museum in Marlbork had one of
similar size and about 15 years ago, one found 24 Amber stones of 6
pounds each near the fisher village Svetoja and delivered them to
the Amber museum in Palanga.

Raw Amber

The Amber museum in Ribnitz-Damgarten is a proud owner of
a piece with 22 ounces and a private collector on the island of Rügen
owns a piece weighing 36 ounces. The largest piece ever found is
owned by the Berlin Museum of Nature. Its weight is about 22 pounds and it
is in raw condition, which is why many visitors to the museum do not even pay
enough attention ot it. Not only its colour but also something else remains
hidden to the visitor.

Amber with inclusions

Of particular noteworthiness are so-called
"inclusions". Parts of trees, feathers, leaves, flowers, insects
or lizards have been covered and conserved by the resin. The
smallest inclusions are hardly recognizable to the eye.
Among 650 known species of included animals are snails, spiders
and scorpions.
6000 kind of insects have been found in Amber.
Starting from flees up to a lizard found in the Dominican Republic
measuring 3 inches.

Phonecians, Greek,
Romans, Vikings, Germans, Baltics and Slavic peoples considered Amber to be
"tears of the sun" or "urin of the gods". Later, it was thought to be
petrified honey or hardened oil.
It is not known exactly if Romans or Russians were the first to
identify Amber as hardened resin.
Anyway, Amber was very pupular because of its golden shine, its rare
occurence and also its softness.

Amber has been used as artistic material, as money and
as exchange material and until the 18. century even as medicine. One
mixed it with oil and creme or wore a piece as a necklace protecting
one against bad spirits and illness.
Amber was said to heal because of a physical condition. Amber
becomes magnetic, if one rubs it against the clothes, which was
considered to be "supernatural".
Commercial dealers and Kings soon placed the searching for and selling
of Amber under a law. The people living near the shores were obligated to
collect and to deliver Amber and the reeves had to watch over that. The
requested quantities have been so enormous, that women, children and
elderly had to go to the beach daily under all weather conditions in
order to fullfill the goal. If someone did not comply, bad punishment
was the rule. Selling Amber has been punishable by death. Later on,
German knights took over the Amber monopoly, leasing it to the so-called
"Amber-Knights-Order",
which forced the people on the coast to collect. Fishermen were offered
salt in exchange and since they needed much salt, they collected as much
Amber as they could and collecting it was a part of their daily life.

The artistic use of Amber

The most valuable pieces of Amber have been reserved for the knights
using it to create artwork.
Their workshops have been in Königsberg and
Danzig. Cutting Amber became a credited profession in the 17. century.
The largest examples of Amber furniture were created during that time. Amber
was cut in slices and glued on wooden boards, which were called "Incrustation".
In the 18. Century one created furnitures as royel gifts. Kurfürst Friedrich August
I. of Saxony (also called "August the Mighty") had received an Amber
furniture as a gift, which is exhibited today in the "Green Cave"
in Dresden.

Also the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm
received an Amber furniture as a wedding gift, which was
bought in the 80s by a museum in Nürnberg, Germany. And the Kurfürst
of Brandenburg ordered in 1701 the creation of a giant Amber altar,
which was given to the Kapuziner-Kloster in Wien to thank them for
their support in becoming a candiddate for the Prussian Kingsmanship. When Friedrich
I. spent several months in Königsberg during his crowning, he
got to like Amber art and came up with the idea, to have a unique
Amber artwork created for himself.

Small Amber Box

This thought possibly was influenced by the fact that
the long existing Amber depots were still filled with the most exclusive
stones and that gaining Amber at the Baltic Sea was supposed to increase
due to the fact of using mining methods.

In 1701 he gave the order to the Dänish Amber
master
Gottfried Wolffram to create a giant Amber wall cover for a galery of
the castle in Berlin- Charlottenburg. 1707, when most of the Amber wall
cover was finished already, the task had been transfered to the Amber
masters Ernst Schacht and Gottfried Turow from Danzig. The Amber wall
cover had been used before 1712 to cover a room in the Berlin city
castle. Zar Peter I. is said to have admired the room, when he
visited Friedrich I. in 1712 on the way to his troups in
Pommern to try to convince Friedrich to fight with him against the
Swedish.

When Friedrich I. died in 1715, his 25-year-old son Friedrich Wilhelm I.
got to reign, who compared to his father was not an art lover. With the
help of the wealth of his father with waning support for art and
science and through his unscrupelous taking advantage of the population, he created
an armee double the size of his fathers.
He got the nickname "Soldier King". One of the first pieces
of art being sold to emphasize the military was the Amber Room. When Friedrich Wilhelm I.
visited Zar
Peter I. in 1717 to convince him to work together getting rid of the
Swedish in Vorpommern, he was reminded of the great interest, that Peter I.
had in the Amber Room.
And when the alliance Prussia-Russia finally was set up, Peter I.
informed his wife in a letter of January 17,
1717 that he had received an Amber artwork as a gift.

only original colour picture of the Amber Room

The Amber Room has been shipped on the ocean as a
royal gift packed in 18 large boxes. First it got to Memel (Klaipeda)
and from there in April 1717 with the help of 18 horse trecks to Petersburg.
The Amber Room was installed in the so called Winterhaus as a part
of the art collection of Russian and Westeuropean artists. In 1822/23
it was mounted in the Winter Palais in Petersburg. In 1755, when
this building had to be replaced by a new Winter Palace built by Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli (1700-1771),
Zarin Elisabeth gave the order to bring the Amber Room to Zarskoje Selo
in order to use it to decorate the Summer Palace of the Zar. It was
the so-called Catharine Palace where Rastrelli created a room of
extraordinary beauty.

The original Amber Room had 10 socket pieces each about
3 feet tall and as wide as the corresponding wall pieces.
There have been 12 wall pieces each 13 feet tall resulting in a total
height of 16 feet. The width of the wall and socket pieces was between 3
feet and 5 feet. If put together, it was enough to cover a wall of 50
feet in length and 16 feet in height. The room in the Winter Palais in Zarskoje Selo
was much larger. It measured 33 feet by 33 feet equaling 196 feet total
wall length. Also, the room was 20 feet tall and the wall cover only 16
feet tall. Rastrelli and his team therefor added aditional pieces to the
room in such an artistic style that a stay in the room was considered to
be the highest pleasure and Catharine II. had chosen it as her
favourite room. Rastrelli ordered 24 large mirrors in Venice, of which 2
each bordered the 12 Amber panels. The socket pieces of the mirrors have
been created out of Amber as well. The Amber Room had 3 doors.
Above the main door, there was a
Supraporte out of Amber and above the other 2 doors, the Supraportes
have been wooden and covered with gold. The white doors had also golden
wooden decorations. The floor was parquet using finest materials. A
beautiful painting covered the ceiling.

The Amber Room existed in this final form from 1763
untill 1941
and only a few had the pleasure to be able to see it. The entire
decoration of the Amber Room left a very warm inviting sensation to the
visitor, no matter if under sunlight or artificial light. Most likely
the Amber Room reminded one of marble, but without the cold impression
of marble. The Amber Room was more precious than the most fancy wooden
cover. When the daylight was shining through the wide windows, it
replaced hundreds of lighting candles and created thousands of
reflections in the mirrors. This connection of light and Amber gave the
Amber Room in the Cathrine Palais its special appearance. This light
made the multicoloured Amber walls shine more beautiful than gold and
created a deeply lasting impression never forgotten by any visitor.

Looting of the Amber Room

On June 22, 1941 Hitler Germany invaded Russia. A giant
machinery of war was started. The many organisations involved in the war
also contained several units specialised in cultural and art treasures
with many years of experience in looting. Their leaders, art scientists
most of the time, had carefully planned the largest and
most perfect plundering of Russia, just like the military divisions.
Even before the war started, all headquarters of the Wehrmacht
had been focused on all valuable objects of art and culture to
satisfy the needs of the Hitler regime.

There is an existing list of the Heeresgruppe Nord of such objects,
which were supposed to fall into the hands of the German empire. This
list had been given out by the Oberkommando of the 18. Army to all
their units on July 8, 1941.
It contained 55 objects with the exact location of 17
museums, 17 archives and libraries and 6 churches. The Kloster Petseri (Petschur)
was also on the list and the looted treasures of the church could be
returned to their owners 30 years after the end of the war after a
dramatic hunt in West Germany by the fruit farmer Georg Stein.

Since July 20, 1941, Hitler was interested in the artwork to be found in Russia. In the fight for life or death, the Russian
defenders did not have the chance to protect the countless treasures in
the castles and museums near
Leningrad. Every man and every method of transport was needed for
defense. The countless palaces near Leningrad have been home to a giant
amount of artwork. To remove them, not some single train wagons, but
many complete trains would have been needed.
For example Petrodworez (Peterhof) hosted 34,214 paintings, art works
and sculptures as well as 11,700 most valuable books, when the German
troups occupied the city. Only some of the most valuable items could be
removed to the Eremitage in Leningrad and some others had been buried
in the last minute.
In Puschkin, some women packed 20,000 items in
a fast manner and brought them to Leningrad in the cellars of the Isaak-Cathedral.
Amoung them, some exhibition pieces of the Amber Room. However, it was
impossible for the women to demount the entire wall cover, which is why they
installed tables infront of the wall cover and covered it with paper to
prevent pieces from falling out in the event of bomb attacks. A huge
amount of valuable art treasures still remained in the museum and depots
when the Germans arrived in Puschkin.

In mid September, the Nazis arrived in Leningrad
with its parks and palaces and in Puschkin, the former Zarskoje Selo
(Zar village), with its Alexander
Palais and the Catharine Palais. Strong divisions had been sent to Puschkin
like the
1. Tank Division and the SS Police Division.
On September 16 they had reached the city and the castle. A bomb
had hit and damaged the large room and also the rooms next to it. In
September
1941 the SS Police Division continued its attack on the northern
part of Puschkin. The Catharine-Palais had been occupied by the Wehrmacht
with the XXVIII. Armee-Korps, the 16. Armee and the XXXXI. Tank-Korps
as well as parts of the 96. and 121. Infantry Divisions. They used
the valuable furniture from the l7. until 19. century to sit or
sleep on.

Katharinen-Palais

An eyewitness reports: "The castle was almost not
damaged.
Only one hit had caused some damage. The Russians could not finish
evacuating all art work. Floors had been covered with sand and chinese
porcelan vases had been filled with water. The Germans did not care
about the furniture of the castle and you could see them sleeping with
dirty boots on the valuable furniture. Finally I got to the Amber Room.
Walls had been covered with thick paper.
I saw two soldiers removing the paper from the wall. They uncovered
shining Amber artwork,
the frame of a picture. When they took their rifles to break
souveniers out of the wall, I stopped them. The next day, the Amber Room
looked more damaged. Much paper had been removed and pieces had been
broken of."

During this time already, members of art looting
squads appeared to register some artwork, but could not start transporting
them because they needed the permit of the Oberbefehlshaber of the 18.
Army, which was not to happen during the heavy fighting.
An important role was played by Nazigauleiter and Oberpräsident
of East Prussia, Erich Koch as well as the director of the art
collections of Königsberg, Dr. Alfred Rohde.
In May 1933,
Koch made the governement come up with a law to "protect Amber" which
said that only natural Amber or a product of such could be called Amber. Dr. Rohde was
not a Nazi and only belonged to the NS-Beamtenbund. However, he still
liked this development and in his publications he expressed his thanks
to Nazi Erich Koch for his support of the Amber art. Rohde was the director
of the art collections of Königsberg and secretary of the art
club. A part of the art collection under his influence was the famous
Amber collection of Königsberg. It contained, for example, Amber
furniture, exhibited in the Amber Room from 1942 until 1944 in the
castle of Königsberger. Rohde was considered to be the
international Amber expert and he also knew of all other famous Amber artwork outside the collection under his influence. In 1941, Rhode
mentioned in one of his books that Friedrich Wilhelm I. gave Peter the
Great
an Amber Room, displayed in Zarskoje Selo near Petersburg".

In the diary of the 18. Armee we find the following text
on September
29, 1941, 4pm: "Rittmeister
Graf Solms, from the O.K.W. ordered to list all art work in the
castles of the Zar, is asking for the protection of the Castle
Puschkin, which is slightly damaged and endangered by careless troups. L. A. K.
gets the order for that protection. A. Nachsch. F. offers helpers and
truck to save some of the most valuable art work under command of Rittm. Graf Solms.
The exact date was found in the diary of the 50. Armeekorps. For the
time between September 18, 1941 until May 7, 1942 we found the following
text:

Oct. 10 "A.O.K. 18 has ordered Rittmeister Dr. Graf Solms and
Hptm. Dr. Poensgen to protect the art
work in
the area of L. A. K."

The Amber Room together with the parquet and the doors had been
removed and packed by the help and supervision of museum experts and art
scientists in uniform. Thanks to the notice in the diary, the offenders
are known. Also the "Wall cover of the Amber Room" was named,
which shows the high ranking of the artwork for the Nazis. And the
destination Königsberg was known already, when the Amber Room had
been demounted. Even if the 50. Armeekorps knew the destination, the director
of the museum for artwork in Frankfurt/Main, Dr. Ernst-Otto Graf zu Solms-Laubach
stated until 1966 that he did not know it. He only confirmed that he
was responsible for the demounting and said under orders of Gauleiter
Erich Koch, the boxes would have been opened in Königsberg. Koch was
indeed involved in the Amber Room at this time already. He had offered
his trucks to Wehrmachtsbefehlshaber
from East Prussia, Generaloberst Küchler, helping the 18. Armee
to bring amunition and other material to the front lines since June 1941.
On the way back, this "Transport command
Koch", brought looted goods to East Prussia.
In September and October, these have been mainly art works from the
museums near Leningrad.

Fact is, the Amber Room was stolen with the destination Königsberg. Dr. Alfred Rohdes
hint to the looters under the command of Generaloberst Küchler
was understood and finalized. Together with the Amber Room, which was
packed in 27
boxes, much more artwork from the Catharine-Palais had been brought
to Königsberg on 18 trucks, which is what he gleaned from the reports.
After knowing the time and persons responsible for the looting, we have to
find out about the person or command, which could decide about the
looted art.
Some publications about the Amber Room say that Generaloberst von Küchler
would have would have given the Amber Room and other art work as a gift
to Nazigauleiter Koch. Of course there is proofe that much artwork has
been used for personal enrichment as well as for gifts to other Nazis.
However, most of these items had been of lesser value and did not fall
under the so-called "Führervorbehalt" (direct order of Hitler). One
can be sure, that the Amber Room had fallen under the "Führervorbehalt".

The Amber Room had been brought to Königsberg,
because it was made there. This is why Dr. Rohde writes in one of his articles,
that the Amber Room "returned to its true home, the only origin
of the Amber". Rhode continues in his report that "the Amber
Room had been given to the art collections of Königsberg by the Verwaltung der Staatlichen Schlösser
und Gärten (Direktor Dr. Gall)". The director of the
Staatlichen Schlösser und Gärten, Dr. phil. Ernst Gall did
not answer any questions regarding the Amber Room until he died in
Germany in 1958.
What happened now after October 1941 with the Amber Room? The director
of the museum of Königsberg Dr. Rohde intensively worked with it. The
art work gave him the unique oportunity to find out which artist had
made, repaired or restored any part during this time, because it was
written down on the back of the wall covers. For a man like Rohde, whose
whole life was filled with the exploration of Amber, the study of its
parts was like a dream come true.

Even before the Amber Room could be remounted in
Königsberg, Rhode took some of the wall covers and exhibited them in the
rooms of the art collection Königsberg. The local newspaper wrote a
report on November 13, 1941
where it says that the Amber Room is an enrichment of world famous
pieces for the art collection". In the mean time, people removed a
wall in the third floor of the castle to create a room similar to the
room in Puschkin.
It was the room next to the Lovis-Corinth-Room with the number 37.
However, the room in Königsberg was rectangular instead of square so
they had to remove one wall cover of the two-oposite sides. Other
changes occured because the parquet and some candle holders and other
parts were missing. The Amber Room displayed by the Nazis in Königsberg
was not the artwork of Puschkin anymore but it had not lost any of its
original shine and mystery.

Castle of Königsberger
after the fire

When Rhode unpacked the Amber Room, he
found that two of the three doors were missing. On January 13, 1942,
he wrote a letter to major Pietschmann of the 18. Army asking him
to remove the doors in Puschkin and deliver them to Königsberg. In
the same month, they had been removed and Rhode revieved them a
short time later. The the end of March
1942, the reconstruction was finished and the Amber Room opened for
exhibit.
Even the Berliner Newspaper had sent a journalist to report about
the event, which was published on April 12, 1942 covering two pages.
The Nazis always liked bragging about their success.

Mrs. Amm, a history teacher from Berlin and an eye
witness as well reports: "I studied in Königsberg from 1939 untill 1945
and was friends with Lotti, the daughter of Dr. Rohde. Often, I was a
guest for lunch. Dr. Rohde told stories about the Amber Room in the
castle of Königsberger and since I was interested in art, he
promised to show it to me one day, which is what he did. Then the attacks
of August 1944 occured and Königsberg
was in ruins. After the second night of bombing I went to downtown to
look for relatives and friends. Around lunchtime I arrived at the
castle and met Dr. Rohde. He looked totally confused and his face was
white. We greeted each other and my first question was: "What
happened to the Amber Room?"
His answer: "Everything destroyed". He took me into unknown cellars of the castle where I saw something like honey with burned
wooden pieces in between. Later on, we never ever spoke about the Amber
Room again.

There is strong evidence against the destruction of the Amber Room in Königsberg

1. the statement of the inspector of the castle, Mr. Henkensiefken.
He wrote a diary where it says that the Amber Room had been removed
and packed after a fire in the castle in February 1944. It has been
brought to the cellars where he saw it undamaged after the destruction
of the castle in
August 1944 when he had to write a report about the castles condition.

2. Eye witness Professor Dr. Gerhard Strauss, art historian
in castle Königsberg. Professor Strauss wrote in the magazin "Freie Welt: "I
came to the castle on the second day after the bomb attack of August 29,
1944 and met Dr. Rohde.
He told me that the Amber Room in the cellars would have survived the
attack. It was standing in boxes outside and Dr. Rohde just wanted to
evacuate it to some rooms in the northern part of the castle.

3. Mrs. Amm would have never asked Dr. Rhode at first: "What
happened to the Amber Room?" After the heavy bomb attack, she
would have asked for the health of the family and her friend for sure.

4. Alfred Rhodes own statements. There were some letters
left by him from the time of
September 1944 until January 1945. In a letter of Dr.
Rhode from September 2, 1944 he wrote: "please tell Director Mr. Gall
that the Amber Room has not been damaged, except six socket parts."

5. Amber is "gasoline". The resin burns with large flames
already at low temperature and leaves only coal. It would never leave a "honey-like substance". Without a doubt, Dr. Rhode had lied to Mrs. Amm.
When the ruins of the castle had been examined, one neither found the
Amber Room, nor the smallest piece of it...nor even the iron parts, which
do not burn...

The Amber Room, Amber parts or iron parts holding
some elements together, never have been found during the investigation...
the Amber Room did not burn. It was last seen in spring of 1944 in Königsberg
or still was there in the beginning of September 1944, if the letters of
Dr. Rhodes count as evidence. Since this time, the trace has been lost .....

The art robbers of the Nazireich took their
knowledge to the grave!

Hermann Göring

Joachim v. Ribbentrop

Alfred Rosenberg

Fritz Sauckel

Executed in
October, 1946

Heinrich Himmler
Suicide May 23, 1945 in Lueneburg

Gauleiter Erich
Koch - Key Figure to the Amber Room
died in Polish prison in 1986